Miles To Go Before I Sleep
by Johinsa
Summary: Short piece about Obi-wan, just prior to Episode IV.


Miles To Go Before I Sleep

Miles To Go Before I Sleep  
by Johinsa

This is just a little piece I wrote one night, and the one story I've ever written in which I didn't do any editing AT ALL after I'd written the thing down. So it's probably either very good or very bad. Comments to [johinsa@hotmail.com][1], as usual.

Star Wars and all Star Wars characters and places and so on belong to George Lucas and Lucasfilm and a bunch of other wonderful people who aren't going to sue me for this harmless little excursion into their universe. Enjoy!

* * *

The wind blew across the Dune Sea, out of the deep desert. Small whirlwinds of sand and grit rose for a few moments as it passed, and then settled again on the trackless ground. It was just after dawn, but already the night-chill had disappeared and the air was shimmering with heat. 

Obi-wan Kenobi got up to close the window, muting the sound of the wind. It whistled and shrieked around the walls of his small house, faint but still audible.

He turned back to the fireplace, where his breakfast was simmering over the banked coals. His food supplies were running a bit low; he'd have to go to Mos Eisley soon to buy more. There wasn't much that was edible in the desert--at least, not for humans. Jawas and Sand People managed to survive there, but Obi-wan didn't relish the idea of trying some of the things _they_ ate.

Sand pattered against the walls, a dry, skeletal sound. Obi-wan ignored it: he'd gotten used to the wind and the storms. He took the dented kettle out of the fireplace and started to eat.

Sometimes the wind sounded almost like a human voice. There were no other humans around for miles, of course; Obi-wan knew that with certainty. The only sentient life he could feel nearby was a pack of Sand People, moving about on the ridge. They wouldn't bother him. A few simple tricks with the Force had been enough to convince the local tribes that he was some sort of magician, and the superstitious Sand People left him alone now.

_This is what my life's come to,_ he thought with some amusement. _Bullying Sand People for my peace and quiet._ Obi-wan glanced over at the house's one mirror, at the lined face and greying hair of his reflection. It struck him that he looked somewhat like his late Master. _I've grown old._

He finished eating and hung the kettle outside the door for the blowing sand to scrub clean. The wind tugged at his robes, howling.

Sometimes he thought he heard voices in the wind. It was his imagination, of course, spinning its own fantasies out of the solitude. Sometimes he wondered if his mind were slipping, the way the locals thought it already had. Old Ben Kenobi. Crazy old Ben.

"Anyone would go crazy out here," he muttered. Tatooine was an inhospitable place, mainly uninhabited. A good place to hide. Aside from his infrequent trips to Mos Eisley and the occasional encounter with a caravan of Jawas or one of the moisture farmers, he was alone. How long had it been?Years, certainly. Years since the Clone Wars, since the last time he had taken an active part in the affairs of the galaxy. How many years, Obi-wan wasn't sure. It had been a long time.

_Too long,_ the wind whispered. _Too long._

Obi-wan nodded without realizing he was doing so. Yes, it had been far too long. He was lonely. In his darker moods, he wondered why it was that he was still here, why he had survived when so many others had died.

_Jedi, Jedi,_ the wind taunted him. _Last of the Jedi._

He was the last. The others were dead, the Jedi Council and the Masters and Knights and Padawans, all killed in the rise of the Empire. Obi-wan's mouth twisted. The rise of the Sith.

He had destroyed a Sith once, long ago, at the cost of his Master's life and very nearly his own. At the time, he had known that the world was changing, but he was sure now that not even Master Yoda could have foreseen how much.

Master Yoda was gone now as well, of course. No-one in the galaxy knew whether the ancient Jedi was dead or had simply disappeared, and by now it was unlikely that anyone cared. Like the rest of the Jedi, like Obi-wan himself, Master Yoda had vanished into history and been forgotten.

_No, no-one could have foreseen this,_ Obi-wan thought. _And what would they have done if they had?_

"The Force touches everything," he remembered Master Qui-Gon telling him. "Through the Force, we too can sense things that otherwise are hidden. Glimpses of the future and of the present, things far away and long past. All are connected by the living Force."

"So we can tell the future?" the young Obi-wan had asked eagerly.

"Sometimes," Qui-Gon had answered. "But the future is not fixed; it shifts with every action in the present. Even to look too closely at the future is to change it. That is why all foretellings and all prophecies must necessarily be unclear."

Obi-wan smiled grimly as he remembered. Oh, yes, Master Qui-Gon had been right. The prophecy that the two of them had followed had certainly shown that. _The Chosen One. The one who will bring balance to the Force._ And Anakin--Vader--had. Obi-wan wondered sometimes if that centuries-dead Jedi who had spoken the prophecy had known where it would lead.

"And where _has_ it led?" Obi-wan asked aloud. "A desert on a backwater planet in the Outer Rim Territories, and one crazy old Jedi who hears things in the wind."

The wind had shifted now and was blowing down from the crest of the ridge. Faintly, Obi-wan could hear the boastful shouting of the pack of Sand People and the bellowing of their mounts. He sat back down on his bed.

For a time he tried to meditate, but his thoughts kept intruding, breaking through the calmness he was trying to achieve. Even the simplest padawan exercises didn't seem to work. With a sigh, he stood and restlessly began to pace the confines of the small room.

It had been chance as much as prophecy that had led him here, Obi-wan thought: chance that had chosen him and his Master to go to Naboo, chance that had forced them to set down on Tatooine, and chance that they had been the ones to find Anakin Skywalker.

_Someone_ would have found him if they hadn't, Obi-wan was sure. If Qui-Gon and his apprentice hadn't been the ones sent to negotiate with the Trade Federation, then whoever went in their stead would likely have been forced to come to Tatooine just as Obi-wan and Qui-Gon had. Fate had decreed that the Chosen One would be found, but it had been only luck, Obi-wan thought, that they had been the ones to find him.

_Luck,_ the wind repeated teasingly. _Lucky, lucky Jedi._

With a sardonic chuckle, Obi-wan stopped by the door. A strange kind of luck indeed, to be exiled from the galaxy to this forsaken planet. Still, he was alive, and he still had a purpose.

His gaze fell on the chest that stood against the wall. Inside, nestled among other old things, were two lightsabers. One was Obi-wan's own; the other had been made by Anakin Skywalker, in the long-past days when he _was_ still Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Padawan. Anakin's sword, Anakin's legacy. Obi-wan looked up as though he could see through the walls and over the deep desert. That was why he was here, the trust he had laid upon himself. Anakin's legacy.

One of the Sand People bellowed outside, surprisingly close. Obi-wan knew a little of their language; he had learned it as a way to pass the time, having little enough else to occupy the long years in the desert. He couldn't speak it--his mouth was the wrong shape--but he understood a fair amount. The one outside was calling to the others of its pack. Answering cries drifted on the wind: _we're coming, we're coming, what have you found?_

The one who had called them shouted back a string of hoarse syllables. _Metal-small-moving-human-thing. Metal-person. Human-person._

Obi-wan frowned. A small ship or a speeder, most likely, and its crew. Someone who had wandered into the desert and gotten lost, perhaps. Obi-wan disliked being disturbed, but he could hardly leave whoever it was at the mercy of the Sand People. Besides, there was something--he wasn't sure what. A feeling, something in the Force. He hadn't felt anything similar for a long time.

He would think about it later, he decided. Pulling a robe over his shoulders and stepping into his boots, Obi-wan went outside. The shape of a speeder was visible further down the ridge, with the figures of Sand People moving around it. And another figure as well, a human boy--

Obi-wan smiled as the Force rippled around him. He knew what it was he sensed now, what he hadn't felt for so long: the presence of another Jedi. The boy was untrained, of course, but strong in the Force nonethless. And he had come here. Anakin's legacy. "The wait is over," Obi-wan said softly to himself, and hurried down the slope to drive the Sand People away.

End.

   [1]: mailto:johinsa@hotmail.com



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